Uncle Jim saw that man on the hillside, didn’t he?
Saw him and recognized him.
Who’s he protecting?
Can’t they easily think he’s being noble and protecting Dick for me?”
“And—Joseph?”
“They’d find a reason for Joseph, if they wanted one.”
“Still I daresay that even in their wildest moments, Judy, they would not accuse Dick of knocking himself unconscious on the hill, or of trying to brain you in the garage.”
She laughed a little, in spite of herself, and she went away somewhat comforted.
But I myself was not so sure.
They released Dick, however, after that interrogation, and things seemed to go on much as before.
But I have reason to think that he was more or less under observation from that time on.
Chapter Twenty-nine
YET THINGS WERE MOVING rapidly to the denouement, although none of us suspected it.
It was the next day that Inspector Harrison found, on the hillside below the garage and leading up to it, those footprints of which he was to say nothing until his case was complete.
I saw him from a rear upper window, tramping about with Simmons at his heels, and every now and then he would stoop and plant a stick in the ground.
Toothpicks, maybe, although they would be a trifle small.
But this was the next day.
That night he left a policeman on guard in the house, and the next morning one appeared to patrol the grounds.
That continued to the end.
I think it was the next day, or the day following, that Lily Sanderson called up to say that Mrs. Bassett was dead.
“She simply slept away,” she said.
“One of the boarders here thinks she got hold of the morphia and took an overdose, but if she did who can blame her?”
She seemed very sad and desolate.
I told her to come in some time, and then what with one thing and another I am afraid I forgot them both; Lily getting her sleep now, in that meretricious bedroom of hers, and Mrs. Bassett resting at last after more trouble than most human beings are called upon to bear.
I was not well during that day or two following the shooting of Joseph.
I had been profoundly shocked, and what with worry about Wallie and the long strain I almost collapsed.
Doctor Simonds ordered me to bed on, I think, the second day, and Judy stayed with me as much as possible.
She was still anxious about Dick, still fearful for him.
She seemed to think that because everything was quiet that that very quiet was ominous, and in her desperation she was casting about for some one, any one, on whom to throw the guilt.
Thus, I think it was on Wednesday, she said to me suddenly, after the doctor had gone:
“I don’t like that man.”
“Why not, Judy.”
“He’s oily, and he’s always around!”
“Only when he’s sent for.”
“Is he?”
She looked at me queerly.
“Do you suppose he just happened to be passing the house the night Joseph was shot?”
“Was he?
I didn’t know that.”
“Well, he was.
I picked him off the street.
Dick was at the telephone, and I ran down to the gate to see if I could find a policeman.
He was passing by in his car then.”
“Well, that was fortunate, wasn’t it?”
“That depends,” she said slowly.
“Look back a little, Elizabeth Jane. He takes care of father when he is sick here; and he knows about the will; he knows us all, and all about us.
And when you think about it, he’s always around, isn’t he?
Somebody throws Joseph down the back stairs, and where is Doctor Simonds?
He’s apparently waiting in his office to be called.
I get hurt in the garage, and he’s at home sitting by the telephone!